The Same Place
by Regency
Summary: At the end of a lifetime, the Quartermaines gather together once more. FINAL chapter added.
1. What You Were

Author: Regency

Title: The Same Place

Rating: PG-13 for one very disturbing reference to death

Characters: Tracy and Lila Q mainly, with appearances by nearly everyone.

Summary: Tracy takes a wry look at her death and finds that the afterlife doesn't mean the end of living.

* * *

This wasn't the way Tracy Quartermaine had expected to go. No, she hadn't envisioned a blaze of glory--she wasn't an aficionado of guns and fire-- or a somber gathering of relatives to commemorate her passing, but this scenario took misfortune to some rather drastic proportions.

She last remembered stumbling through the jungle of one of the godforsaken Maarkham Islands in search of her runaway husband. She had been in the process of reciting a long list of grievances against the son of a bitch in question when she came upon an especially perilous log. Sharp limbs and prickly palms extended in every direction and she'd added cuts and bruises to the reaming she was going to give Luke as soon as she found him. Cursing, she'd crossed the fallen tree, and cursing, she'd tripped and fallen onto the business end of a particularly sharp branch. She didn't scream—she couldn't, and an unnatural hush descended over her. This was not what she'd expected.

In the aftermath of that catastrophe, Tracy was surprised to wake up to a familiar touch on her cheek. She denied what was happening even as she opened her eyes and was treated to the visage of her mother as she'd been when Tracy was still a young foolish woman. The reality felt impossible.

She reached out, fully expecting Lila to vanish right before her. It couldn't have been her mother, but she knew this face; not another like it existed. Her cheeks were soft and radiant with vigor, her lips curved into a genteel smile. The air around her carried the light, feminine fragrance of roses that personified Lila Quartermaine. The eyes held that same sincerity. She wasn't an illusion.

"You're real." Tracy was startled by the youthful ring of her voice. She touched her throat, thinking something must've been wrong. Wrong if surmising two-thirds of her life had gone the way of the Whig Party was to be taken as a negative sign of things to come.

Lila stroked her hair comfortingly.

"So are you."

In an intense swell of fear, Tracy climbed from the bed and made for the nearest mirror. She was assailed with no small amount of grief as she traced her familiar reflection in the glass. It wasn't her anymore. The last thirty years had vanished from her face. Her cheeks were smooth, almost sunken; she was slender from there down. The nightgown hung becomingly on her frame. The deep v-neckline opened to her cleavage, which wasn't substantial. Number one and number two on the list of things she was going to miss.

"What is this?" She instinctively rubbed her chest where a rather nasty hole should've been. It was all intact, she was all intact.

Lila stood behind her and rested her hands on her daughter's thin shoulders.

"This is where you come to start over."

"Heaven," Tracy asked, disbelieving even as she said it.

Lila laughed good-naturedly. She'd had similar conversations with others over the years and that place always seemed to come up. She'd never had the heart to tell them that they'd all been tested during their lifetimes for passage to that coveted place. If they arrived here, they had failed.

"Hardly, my darling. Think of it as a second life." She decided there were worst things. At least they were all together.

Sadly, Tracy wasn't quite ready to abandon her previous one. She still had a great deal of love for the people she'd left behind, even those that didn't feel the same. She shivered as if someone had stepped over her grave. It was true; she really was dead. Though she would be loathe to admit it, death wasn't so bad. The pain was over, the worst part had passed. Considering the life she'd lived, death could come to be a blessing. Thus far, it was hardly the worst thing she'd ever endured.

Perhaps the worst of it _was _knowing that no one else had any idea what had happened. Not a one expected it. Her body was in the middle of nowhere and her family wasn't likely to start looking for her until Luke made his return, if he ever did. At this rate, she thought she might be left to rot there for all eternity. Having the chance to do it all another time didn't lessen the loneliness of having been no one's concern on the first turn.

It was beyond the reach of her fingers to manipulate and was, therefore, beyond her control. Hindsight was for the living of which she was no longer one. So, under Lila's careful tutelage, she began again.

The life she founded was eerily similar to that which she'd been forced to abandon with a few stark contrasts. She lived in a quaint little port city and was the daughter of a wealthy family. She was the Chief Executive Officer of ELQ once more and not one of her relatives contested her ability to do the job well. If that wasn't disorienting enough, the family she had cohabitated with for so long, the Quartermaines consisted only of Lila, Tracy herself, AJ, Jason--Q, not Morgan-- and a thus unnamed young girl affectionately called Sweetheart. Everyone else was, dared she voice it, _alive. _Tracy found that the phrase largely lost its meaning as she mingled with Port Charles' long-deceased citizens.

Every person existed with a purpose and everyone found someone to count on. Adella Corinthos paid wordless penitence caring for her sons' never-born children. Few people blamed her for Ric and Sonny anymore. They had chosen who they would be long after her death. It didn't hurt that Lily Corinthos was there to help.

Luis Alcazar had begged Kristina Davis's forgiveness and began to court her. They'd been living together for a year and a half. Love apparently transcended a heartbeat, and vengeance. If only the message crossed a flat line, maybe their surviving siblings would be able to find a similar peace.

As Tracy built a respectable existence for herself in the mortal negative of the place she'd called home, she began to find it increasingly difficult to peek in on those she still held so dear. That life had grown so far away and was becoming harder to miss by the day.

Two months passed before Luke returned from the other side of the middle of nowhere, and another passed before even Dillon became concerned of her whereabouts. Making use every advantage at their disposal, they searched for her. Weeks passed as federal agents and private eyes went looking for the missing Quartermaine heiress. After a hundred days with no leads, they considered that she might have simply left town on her own. Her eldest son, the one she thought knew her least, said she wouldn't have and they believed him. The hunt continued, with a desperate fervor at its heart.

Five months after her death, a guided jungle tour stumbled, horrified, upon her well-dressed remains. Looking on, she'd winced in sympathy. There wasn't much left. She had developed a special kind of contempt for the local pumas regarding that.

Three separate tests were conducted to confirm her identity before her family would accept it. They refused to believe she was that easily lost to them and for that long before they'd known. When the news was delivered, by Robert no less, she'd turned away. The loss in Dillon's eyes was more than she could stand and she'd fled the sight of it for a drink.

Her memorial service was quaint and brief; all feeling the less said the better. The multitude of tears shed, by these people, on her behalf was stunning. They had hardly ever treated her with more than a passing contempt, and yet, they cried.

Brooklyn had watched her sealed casket with a teary-eyed fascination, hoping aloud that it was an unfunny joke being played on her entire family. She wasn't sure why she was so miserable at the passing of a woman she knew little to nothing about, but she was. She thought maybe it was because now she'd never have the chance to learn anything at all. She had the sinking feeling she'd never hear her grandmother's name spoken aloud again.

Across the aisle, Dillon clung to Georgie throughout the service, often squeezing his eyes shut to hold back reality. The tears that managed to slide past his perseverance were particularly bitter. He felt the emptiness of where his mother had been and wished for the awkwardness that used to persist whenever they spoke. He'd take the long pauses and the dramatic eye rolling if it meant having her. They were best friends once, he recalled; he ached to go back there, to the movies, the scheming, and the hotel rooms so small she'd fall asleep on his shoulder.

Luke sat tight-lipped and pale, and blamed himself. He thought of the ring she'd worn. It was still there. Robert had given it to him after identifying Tracy's body, proof positive of the worst. After much novel contemplation, he'd returned it. In his eyes, its place was on her finger. It was by far the greatest thing he'd given her in their time together and it was his hope that it meant more than the misery had.

Lulu cried inexplicably at his side and carried a torch of blame for him, too. She'd been horrid to the Step-Witch, but she'd also found a lot of who she was to become inside of her. Seeing herself so keenly in the eyes of someone she despised was more than her young mind would accept, and it had rebelled--she had rebelled. Strangely, what she'd miss most was the kinship. Now, there'd be no one else to feel abandoned when her father disappeared without so much as a goodbye. She was back at the start--little Lulu, lonely and misunderstood. If her father had been considerate for once in his life, she thought maybe she wouldn't have to feel this way.

Alan and Monica supported each other mightily and subscribed to their own brand on accountability. If they'd kicked Luke to the curb in the beginning, this all could've been avoided. Alan remembered his sister being young and precocious in place of middle-aged and conniving, and discovered that he loved her no less at the end of her life than he had when she first arrived. The clever adolescent he knew so well wasn't visible in the eyes on the memorial photograph. She was lovely, yes, but it wasn't the Tracy he wanted her remembered as; it wasn't his baby sister. He berated himself and wished he'd chosen a different picture.

Edward blinked stoically and hoped, for her sake, that she had seen Lila. He felt a tightening in his chest as he, Alan, Luke, Robert, Ned, and Dillon rose to carry out of her casket. It was hardly a burden, it was so light. He showed an indifferent face to the public, but later that night, he drank himself into oblivion not to mourn for her. Kind or disgraceful, she had been his little girl, created in his image. He didn't look at his reflection for days after he committed her to the ground.

* * *

As she went about her day, Tracy spied BJ Jones sprinting the halls of General Hospital. She rolled her eyes before catching sight of a Corinthos offspring following close behind. She discreetly tripped up the child and felt little guilt over it.

Sweetheart, who had been watching from a distance -- as always--gave her a stern look and walked away. Once again, Tracy failed to live up to her. She sighed; she could only try. That little girl was the only one to take issue with Tracy constantly since she'd made her appearance in the Q mansion some time ago. Every single time she stepped even an inch out of line, there was that face and those stern, stern eyes. They took root in whatever wounds they caused and didn't cease to sting when she stalked away. Tracy thought she must've been Daddy's daughter from another of his affairs. Nonetheless, she thought of her child when the little girl laughed, however rare an occasion it was. And, on the canvas of her mind, there was always the portrait of a regretful smile.

* * *

It was a warm evening after dinner when Tracy asked, "Mother, why didn't you go to heaven?" It was probably an absurd question, but this place they were in was absurd, too. It was worth posing at its source.

Lila thoughtfully swished her ice tea. She could never be found with another drink in hand unless there was call to celebrate. Only then could she be caught sipping a glass of champagne and she was never tipsy.

"I didn't belong there." She caught a drop of water off the sweating glass and rubbed it between her fingers.

"Why not?" Tracy watched her mother's elegant fidgeting and tried to connect the image with hands that hadn't shifted under pressure when she was a child.

"Because I am not without sin and some of my biggest are those that God cannot forgive."

Tracy frowned in confusion and set down her red wine. She was one to drink when she felt like it and sometimes when she didn't it. Admittedly the compulsion wasn't as strong as it used to be.

"I don't understand."

Lila took Tracy's hand in a familiar gesture of affection her daughter was still acclimating herself to.

"Because my greatest sin was against Alan and against you. I should've been a better mother and defended you against your father. I didn't."

Tracy immediately began to rationalize. In her memory, Lila Quartermaine could do no wrong. Her love had been genuine and ran as deeply as the Mediterranean Sea. It had sustained Tracy her entire life. Now that it was over, she didn't want to let it go.

"You couldn't have, Mother. Daddy controlled--still controls--everything."

"Darling, I wasn't completely dependent on him. I had the money to take you and Alan away from his cruelty. I could've taken you home to Europe. You would've loved it." To think the life a young Lila had dreamt of and attained had become hell the first time her husband called her daughter a burden and she'd stood calmly by and let it be.

"I do love Europe." She sounded feeble and young, and she felt the same. Bits and pieces of the only saint she prayed to were falling away.

"I know. I must've filled your head with such fairy tales growing up. It's no wonder you showed a passion for foreign lands."

She clung to her mother's strong, delicate hands.

"I loved the fairy tales. They were the best dreams to never come to life." She'd inhaled the books like oxygen and had built her ideal future around them. She was happy in her La La Land for a long time before it had dissolved in her juvenile hands and she realized she would have to be her own White Knight. In those dreams, she'd never been practical.

Lila implored her only daughter with her greatest weapons, her eyes. She hadn't a clue that Tracy had always envied them and wanted their innate tenderness for herself.

"They can now. You can try again. Your father isn't here to stand in your way and if he was, I would stop him. You can be the woman you were meant to be, no detours."

"I don't know if I can." She hadn't conquered the world in sixty years and she was exhausted for having tried and failed.

Lila smiled, warmly exuding the love that existed at the center of things. She used to wish she'd endowed Tracy with more of herself before she'd departed the Earth. She was convinced, utterly convinced, that she'd willed her stubborn daughter nothing with which to improve herself. She observed her now and saw that she was wrong. That slight waffling, the covert humility in her eyes was all Lila. Edward hadn't a bashful bone in his body and he'd never told their baby she'd made him proud. To this day, Tracy didn't know, but her mother did.

"You can."

Tracy cleared her throat and looked down at their joined hands. She wished she shared the same confidence.

"Where do I start?"

Her mother tipped her head towards the French doors leading to the drawing room. A golden blond head peeked shyly around the doorframe.

"Start with Sweetheart. Your daughter needs a name."

"My daughter," she covered her mouth as it became clear as crystal. The girl had been her continuous shadow, appearing and disappearing wherever Tracy might be. She wore a mask of expectation and, more often than not, Tracy exhibited behavior that would cause it to fall. The daughter looked to her mother for guidance and found only examples of what not to be.

"The daughter you used to see in every little girl you'd meet."

"Sweetheart?" She'd been so frail in her dreams, breakable at Tracy's touch, and she hadn't had the strength to face a child she couldn't hold or even guard against herself.

The normally poised child revealed herself fully, and with a look of willful determination. Exemplifying in every way, the blood that rushed through her.

"Mama."

That word repaired all the hurt she'd experienced since that day in the European Women's Clinic. She put out her arms--a gesture so instinctive and elementary that Tracy had no time to fear rejection. Her daughter ran into them and held on for dear life. There was never a chance of her turning away.

"Don't let go," she whispered, her breath warm against her mother's neck.

"Never," Tracy promised in return. It wasn't a vow to be made lightly and tarnishing it was the last thing she'd ever intentionally do.

Dark clouds blew in over Tracy's Port Charles. The wind grew cold and fierce over their heads. Lila looked up knowingly. Her daughter and granddaughter clung to each other. Sweetheart felt it and shivered in Tracy's embrace. There was lightning.

"Mama, what's happening?"

Tracy had no idea, but Lila did.

"Something somewhere familiar is changing."


	2. Who You Are

* * *

The storm didn't pass for days, but hung as a specter over their home. Tracy didn't like the look of the clouds. They stood ready to drop hell upon them, which they did. When it wasn't rain, it was hail. She swore as she remembered her umbrella in the foyer beside the door. She crossed her fingers for an overcast evening. She had meetings and work and quality time to be spent with Melanie --Sweetheart--in the park. She wanted this to be a good day. It needed to be a good day.

Evidently, it was possible to be dead and have a worse day.

Hers didn't improve as she encountered the indomitable Marco Dane on the sidewalk. It bewildered her constantly to meet someone unexpected. They were equally stunned to meet her. _You died, _they'd ask. _I didn't hear._ She'd shrug and ask who had. Her day went about that well throughout. Discovering dead old friends was not on the agenda this morning. She counted the unnatural number of six.

The torrential rain had poured for half an hour on Tracy's head before she walked into the eerily tranquil mansion. There was usually something happening. Jason was off with Courtney. AJ was doing no one knew what. Melanie was with friends. Tracy was seemingly alone. It took a while to adjust to the sensation, which was every bit as tangible as the thrum of a live wire.

Before she could get settled, her mother appeared out of the kitchen wearing a defeated expression. She brightened upon seeing Tracy, but there was no hiding her pain.

"Mother, is something wrong?"

"Not yet, my dear, but soon." Her blond hair appeared near white in her distress. She poured them standing tea and handed Tracy a cup.

They sat down in the living room and there was no remark on Tracy's dripping all over the imported furniture and rug. It could be fixed by someone, anyone.

They sipped without talking for a while until Tracy was at her end with it.

"Mother, what is going on? I've never seen you this worried."

She furrowed her high brow and nodded.

"I know and I'm trying not to be, but I am failing." Her hands shook and the delicate china pinged as it rattled with its mate, the saucer.

Tracy removed the glassware and sat it on the table, replacing it with her hands.

"Talk to me."

She exhaled painfully.

"Many things are about to happen at home. I will have to deal with them and I need you to help me. Will you be up to it?"

"What's about to happen, Mother?"

She held her slim fingers to her mouth and restrained every ounce of agony. It didn't hurt, she had nothing to fear.

"Our family is about to suffer worst than it ever has. I don't know if I'm strong enough to watch them fall apart."

Tracy enclosed Lila in her arms and held her protectively to her chest. Her mother was breaking. Something catastrophic was on the horizon.

"I'll be strong, then, Mother. You've been this family's touchstone for long enough."

* * *

They would all eventually appear over the years, sometimes singularly or in greater numbers under worse circumstances, and most were likely met by either Tracy or Lila upon their arrival in town. They encountered adversaries and friends, former lovers, and ex-husbands. Tracy didn't see the challenge coming, but took her cues from her mother and kept an eye out. There was a blow to the chest right around the corner. She was forewarned and still naively unaware.

Against her will, Tracy began to cry when she met Georgie Jones-Quartermaine far too soon. BJ was at her side and they took turns soothing the still young woman. It was Tracy's duty to tell her that it wouldn't have mattered if she'd taken the Volvo instead of the Bentley to pick up her son; she would've died one way or another. It was her time.

She felt Dillon's anguish at the heart-level and whispered platitudes that would never reach his guarded ears. Nothing counted then but his grief.

Noah Drake landed on someone else's bed, but they heard of his arrival and how he'd swept his wife into his arms before anything. Mother and daughter had shared a solemn, if regretful smile at the love only one of them had equaled during life.

Lila saw Alan flicker into existence once but she gently begged him to go back, as though it were in her power to turn him away. He vanished before Tracy saw him. He'd nearly died protecting a patient from a knife-wielding a madman.

On a wintry day, Edward Quartermaine himself made an appearance and stared at Lila with such disbelief that he might've died again were he not already deceased. She smiled and led him through the same process she'd taken Tracy through. It was magical because she loved him and hell because that love conflicted with the promise she had made to her daughter. She sent him to explore without a word and stood, somehow, by her oath.

Not a tragic two days later in living time, Laura Spencer rose from the pillows and felt for the first time in more than a dozen years. She reached out and touched Tracy's face, then her own. After a shaky start, the two of them walked the length of Port Charles until their knees buckled and spoke only of Luke. They came away with the sense that they had each loved him and that the brutal conclusions of that love ached more than any wrong he had done to them.

Morgan Corinthos woke up crying and holding his head after an unfortunate accident with his brother and his father's gun. Adella came slowly and Tracy was forced to hold him as he sobbed. He was asleep in her arms before his grandmother arrived.

Stone Cates sat opposite Lila as Robin Scorpio opened her eyes for the first--well, second first--time. BJ and Georgie looked on from the foot of the bed. He stroked her hair and told her she wasn't sick anymore. She laughed until the tears began to fall. All the health in this world couldn't make up for what was lost. Not even what was found.

Sitting on the park bench between her grandmother and her aunt, Brook Lynn Ashton wished for another chance to go to prom, but for the night to end differently. Randall Brant had never intended to do right by her, and now it hardly made a difference.

The ground shook with Lois's cries and Tracy commiserated. She stroked Brook's hair as she couldn't pretend this was a better place to be.

Eventually, a day Tracy had dreaded finally arrived. She ascended the curved staircase, flanked by Laura and her mother. The weather was picturesque. She and Laura's moods were not.

They entered the master bedroom and took their places on the edge of the bed, which sat empty before them. Some souls needed room. Slowly, slowly, slowly, Luke Spencer rolled into a blur of color. It was hard to distinguish him for a while, but then, he suddenly came into sharp focus. It felt like an eternity, but was only, in actuality, a few lingering moments. Only the time it took to say goodbye.

He rubbed his face, feeling instantly the difference in how he was and how he had been. He dropped his hand and looked at the women gathered for him. His mouth fell open.

"Close your mouth, Luke, you'll catch flies." Tracy smirked, the affection abundant in her shimmering eyes. It wasn't that she was sad, but that she mourned the life he was no longer living. Soul corralling took its toll after a while. It seemed all she ever thought about anymore was what had been left undone by each spirit to pass through her door.

"Spanky," he grinned. He couldn't express how much he'd missed her. Words didn't exist-- emotions didn't exist to say it. He kept quiet because it hadn't become real to him yet. She was still a much sought after delusion that had evaded him in his final days.

He turned his head and he stopped even the habitual pretense of breath. He saw Laura. The Laura who had suddenly departed his life after a decade's long absence was here. She smiled and touched his chest. It was a simple touch, a comfort he appreciated.

"Angel." He struggled to say more, but she silenced him with the shake of her head.

Lila's unyielding support moved him--he double-took when he recognized the gaze if not the face it peered out from. She told him to rest and left him to his women. His heart was up to him, the most reckless of possessors.

Tracy wasn't in a mind for decisions, especially for one she didn't feel was in her favor. She loved him. It wasn't a secret anymore and was no longer a burden to be carried on her shoulders. She left the mansion with Melanie in tow. They decided on shopping, then, ice cream -- oh, and more shopping.

They returned that night with a metric ton of purchases to find Laura long gone and the house settled to sleep. Even Mel was dead on her feet--no pun intended--and Tracy lifted the lightweight girl up the stairs because her legs refused the job. After tucking her in, Tracy thought she was the only one awake.

She jumped when the door to her bedroom closed behind her. She spun around and saw Luke standing there. Handsome and young though he was, she missed that spiky gray hair quite a bit. Guilty pleasures died hard. He stuck his hands in his pockets and puttered about her door.

"You want something, Luke?"

He massaged the back of his neck.

"Yeah, I do."

She perched on her bed and sat back expectantly. No more words passed from his mouth.

"What then?"

He shrugged.

"I want you, spanky buns."

She didn't believe it.

"I don't have your 15 million, Luke. When they say you can't take it with you they mean it."

"I don't give a damn about the money. It isn't about the money for me anymore. I love you, Tracy. And, I have it on good authority that you love me back."

She stared at him somewhat malevolently.

"Whose?"

He smirked superiorly.

"I'm not at liberty to say, pumpkin."

She narrowed her eyes in the distance and slammed her fists into the mattress.

"Mother!"

"Whoa there, mama," he attempted to calm her with irritating placating hand gestures. "I did _not_ say it was your mother that told me. It could've been someone else. In fact, it was someone else."

Hardly trusting his word, she ran through her short list of who would know and the culprit was fairly obvious. She groaned and flopped backwards on the duvet covers.

He ambled over and plopped down beside his late wife--he wasn't sure if she was still the "late" wife if he was "late" too. Speaking of which, just what were they late for?

Tracy slung her arm over her eyes in misery, wondering how it was possible to be a fool in two lifetimes. She was silent for some time and Luke began to think she'd fallen to sleep. He prodded her side a little; she squeaked and jerked away. Definitely conscious and lucid.

"Was Laura wrong?"

Tracy curled away from the interrogation. She didn't want to think about it right now. It was easy to openly love him in absence, but now that they were in the same space again…she was at a loss.

"Tracy. I think I deserve an answer."

She blinked against her four hundred thread count sheets and rolled over, looking up at his wondrous face.

"I agree."

She stood up and disappeared into her walk-in closet, pulling off her clothes.

He watched after her, mystified.

"Am I gonna get one?"

She stuck her head out of the doorway.

"Give it a second." She was gathering her courage and rummaging around for the sexiest article of silk drama she owned. She found it and slipped into it discreetly.

She heard him moving about, maybe giving her privacy, perhaps snooping. She wasn't concerned; her secrets were void at this point. She'd taken them to the grave and doing anything further with them smacked of unfairness. She tried to do right now, even by her enemies.

She stepped out of her mini-mall and saw her husband looking at himself critically in her vanity mirror.

"You look fine, Luke."

He turned fast at her voice and nearly tripped himself in place upon seeing her. If his jaw wasn't on the ground, then the ground had surely risen to meet it.

She had never been more thankful for her long legs than she was now. His eyes inspected them on a long journey from the tips of her toes, and it was even longer before they touched the hem of her negligee.

"Answer enough for you?"

He stammered unlike his usual cool self. Tracy Quartermaine willingly seducing him. No ulterior motive. His head was on the verge of exploding and it had little to do with his brain function.

"I want to say yes, but I'd like to hear it in your words."

They'd come too far to turn around now.

"I love you, too, Luke Spencer. And I've missed you." It was her admission. And it was in his hands.

He crossed the distance between them in five seconds and engaged her mouth in a greater display of bravado than she'd ever felt. Score ten for him.

Not that he was scoring tonight. When they stumbled to the bed, his newly admitted soul mate could do little more than nod off. The day -- as they never seemed to end here-- had been arduous.

He swept the hair from her eyes, grumbling about her being all fox and no follow-through. Not half as asleep as he'd previously thought, she whacked him in the chest and stole the covers.

He groaned and rolled his eyes. One thing could be said for death. It hadn't change Tracy's personality a bit. He wrapped himself around her for warmth.

During the night, she let the covers fall to the floor. The least of her concerns was pneumonia.

* * *

Sitting down alone to a late breakfast the next morning, Tracy had a great deal of time to reflect on things. She looked back on her father, with whom she was still marginally estranged; her husbands, a number of whom were here now; and her family, those that continued living and carried the sorrow of their heavy losses with them. She'd frequently looked in and anguished over the complications of their daily lives as they did, wishing she was there. Having Luke near again made her realize why she couldn't do that anymore.

Her time on Earth had ended and her role had been filled, for better or worse, by Monica, but things had changed. No internal troublemaker remained for the family to unite against. There was also no patriarch there to impose his ways. There was no Georgie to support her aspiring young filmmaker. No Luke to rail after. No Brooklyn to play innocent and hopeful. By and large, the Quartermaines were mere fossils of the respectable clan they once were; their fragile bonds tattered to the thinnest of gossamer threads and continuously breaking.

There was no sense in mourning bones, Tracy found, no matter how tempting it might be. The essence of the living thing was gone.

So, she hesitantly but resolutely wished her loved ones, and even those she despised, an amazing life and shut that door. For now, at least. If they needed her, she existed already in every moment they'd shared, the bad ones not withstanding. And she'd exist, to them, again when they arrived on this side of Port Charles Harbor.

Tracy hid her smug smile as Luke dragged himself in from sleep and slumped into the chair beside her, reaching with a moody scowl for the coffee and pilfering a bagel from her plate. She pretended not to notice and turned the page of her _Wall Street Journal_. She listened to him practically inhale it and rolled her eyes, because he was just a little bit obnoxious--and she loved him for it.

She folded her paper and marveled once more at her surroundings. It was identical to the original, but lacking in the most basic necessity, the voices. Stretched out before her, the table was clear except for the two place settings in use by her and Luke. There was a centerpiece and an endless expanse of linen tablecloth, gone mostly untouched for years. It needed people. It was empty and sparse without the eccentric gathering of souls that could only be _her_ family.

She knew that in time, every Quartermaine would be drawn here, in search of the place and the people that made them whole. She also knew that she'd undoubtedly be there waiting, at the foot of the bed to welcome them, in whatever order they should come. That on the evening of that certain date, this room would be full with their voices; bickering, muttering, and beneath it all, loving each other as only they could.

She exhaled, all distress and tension gone. This was the honest to God last chance, this second life. For once, Tracy had landed right where she wanted to be: at the side of the man she deeply loved and who dared love her in return; with her mother, who had loved her most, unconditionally; and in this house where her daughter lived and her boys would someday, in an incomprehensible future, set foot and live again.

Until then…

Tracy snagged the second bagel Luke had stolen from his grasp and dropped it back on her suspiciously empty plate.

"I was eating tha--"

She quieted his protesting mouth with her own. She pulled back, a wicked smirk adorning her dark-tinted lips.

"I always follow-through." As he reached for her, she slipped out of his reach and ran for the staircase. He was hot on her trail, the sumptuous blueberry bagel forgotten. They passed the master bedroom for Tracy's and the door swung shut after their entrance. Even closed, it wasn't sound-proof.

Their exuberant laughter bounced between the manor's old walls and shivered above the master bed. A life force quivered into being and settled at the peaceful sounds. Her blond hair fanned out across the pillows and it blew with her sigh.

The cancer had returned to do its office, but Monica Quartermaine wasn't ready to wake up yet.


	3. We Gather Together

**Chapter Three -- We Gather Together**

Tracy stood outside the den and peaked in through a crack between the sliding doors. Their chatter was like music, a balm on agitated wounds. They were close enough to touch.

As she knew they would, her family had returned to this place and had found their way back together. It was a dream she had entertained often since her arrival here and it had become a reality.

She heard Alan. "Where's Tracy? It's been too long since I've seen her."

Monica, as aware as anyone of Tracy's own longing, placated him. "She'll be here. Give her time, Alan."

Tracy spied Brooklyn nestled between her parents, seemingly content in her reunion. Ned lifted his eyes just then and saw her. He smiled and touched his palm to his heart. She nodded. She had taken good care of her granddaughter, better care than she had taken of him.

Dillon clung to Georgie, hiding his face in her shoulder as he rocked her side to side. The peace she had wished for him had been long in coming--a lifetime away in fact-- but it had come.

Emily and Skye were laughing over some foible of youth, giving one another thorough once-overs. The last time they'd been in the same company they were old women with a furnace worth of hell behind them. They'd only looked like this in pictures.

Tracy saw Lila standing beside Edward at the window and looked away quickly. Their relationship hadn't been the same after his appearance. What could she say? Her mother's heart was no wiser than her own was, and neither had ever been able to refuse it. Therefore, Edward and Lila and their eternal love were bonded again, before Tracy, Luke, Brook, Morgan, Melanie, Jason, AJ, and Monica. From then on, Tracy hid her emotions from her mother. She would love her until she no longer could, but she would not trust her.

She sighed and leaned her forward against the treated wood. If she took a single step, she could join them in their joy. This was paradise, their paradise and it existed, finally. If she wanted it, if she could summon the courage, she could do it. Her feet remained resolutely on the floor and her fingers fell away from the door. She couldn't. Perhaps too much had changed.

She stiffened when the floorboards of the stairs creaked under a known burden. She smelt his spicy cologne before he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her ear.

"Hello, beautiful. Fancy meeting you here."

She smiled, his presence exactly the loving constant necessary to calm her.

"And who might you be?" She tipped her head giving him unimpeded access to her neck. If he was anything, he was a master of the throat kiss. Worship in its finest incarnation.

"Your loyal consort here to carry you away to our bedchamber for a rousing bout of lovemaking."

She shuddered. "Ooh, a man after my own heart."

He nudged a hand between the folds of her coat, subtly nibbling at her jaw. "Baby, your heart isn't exactly what I'm aiming for at the moment."

She chuckled. "You're shameless."

He turned her around slowly and leaned down for a kiss without answering. She rubbed his sides until his intercostals twitched at her ministrations. His lips rippled against hers. She grinned as he began to fidget in her arms. He pulled away, further evading her taunts.

"Cut it out. I am supposed to be seducing you, here, and you bring on the tickling. Red-faced and twitching isn't the look I was going for," he pouted, appealing to her compassionate nature. She smirked because he knew failure was imminent.

She thumbed his pout and mimicked him, unsympathetically. "Poor, Lukey. My heart goes out to you."

He growled, narrowing his eyes as if eyeing a fine prey such as herself. "Watch it, wife. Keep taunting me and I may not be able to restrain my…baser instincts."

Intrigued, she stepped deliberately into his personal space and filled her lungs with the heavy scent of him. She nuzzled his jaw and his neck, scraped her teeth along his Adam's apple, and beamed naughtily as he shivered. She hooked her fingers around his belt loops and bodily dragged him in her direction.

"I think your concern should be _my _baser instincts…husband," she whispered warmly, her lips falling short of colliding peacefully with his.

As though summoned by Tracy's inner aide, Alice appeared from the kitchen, old uniform in place. She had to laugh; their housekeeper had become as much a part of the family as any of them.

"Miss Tracy, dinner's ready. You want me to tell the family?"

Keeping a subtle eye on her tightly wound husband; she shook her head and dismissed Alice. "I'll handle it. Thank you."

Alice nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.

"Control yourself. It's time to eat now."

His gaze to a nosedive below her neck and she pursed her lips to hide a smile.

"Food, Luke. Think of food."

He brushed his knuckles against her cheek, smirking in his oh so cavalier way. "Have I mentioned I'm a cannibal lately?"

She tapped his chest, stepping away from his incredibly tempting, though unvoiced offer. "Behave. This is the family's first dinner back together. It doesn't need to be rife with sexual tension." She stiffened her spine and wrapped her fingers around the door handles.

He touched her shoulders in some well-needed support. "I don't know about that, sweetheart, Mom and Pop can definitely make a room sizzle."

She threw a disgusted look over her shoulder and shuddered without pleasure. "Gack! Are you insane? What could you possibly gain from filling my head with that image?" She rubbed her eyes shortly to steel herself.

She touched the door again and pulled away, completely repulsed. "Oh, God, it's not going away."

"Well," he began to massage her neck suggestively, "maybe I can distract you."

She chuckled dryly, "No more of your distractions, please. I have to eat soon."

Knowing the game was up, he kissed her crown gently and stepped back. She needed to be strong and, with his help, she was.

She took a deep breath and threw open the doors.

Tracy whirled her glass of the good stuff around before taking another sip. She had been silent, immersed in this glass for most of the evening. She was content just to listen to the casual and passionate murmur of her relatives. There was so much time to relate, for both. Sure, she'd kept fairly abreast on the happenings of the living, but small moments tended to pass her by.

She snickered at her brother's red-faced indignation as Monica teased him about his one and only date with Bobbie Spencer following her death. It was easy to laugh now, for she and Monica, but she knew they'd seen his struggle to survive Monica's loss. They'd seen him shatter and break, fall off the wagon, and crawl back on his hands and knees. It was easy to laugh now that they were together again, now that all was finally right.

Skye elatedly related tales of her eldest child, Lila Rae, and the birth of her first grandson. Tracy raised a toast to that young woman, now the Chief Executive of the living ELQ. No, she wasn't blood, but she had become family.

"To our children--those that are with us," she nodded to her Dillon, Ned, and Melanie, "and those that will join us much, _much_ later."

"Here, here." Everyone drank deeply, despite their happiness praying for a long duration before their next reunion. Their children were precious, their posterity, and were the only chance they had to rebuild the body that was once the Quartermaines--in that life, at the very least.

Swirling her glass again--a habit she'd developed to hold more and drink less--she wasn't surprised to feel a set of finely tuned fingers lacing with hers. She snuck a look to her left to find the husband speaking animatedly with AJ over something or another involving their _Haunted Star._ They were unlikely business partners, but their business was a whopping success. She could only say it made for a very wealthy marriage, on both ends.

She thought he must have felt her watching him when he suddenly turned away from his lively debate to lift an innocently questioning brow. She gestured towards their linked hands. He beamed, still playing innocent.

"Oh, Spunky."

She rolled her eyes and gulped down the rest of her drink. _Oh, please._ She sighed inwardly. _Damn him for being so charming_. She almost bought that wide-eyed look.

Still, she was ever aware of her better half and noted his leaning over to whisper conspiratorially with her brother's eldest son. _What are you up to, husband?_

As though she'd spoken aloud, he smiled at her, disarmingly affecting a "who me?" expression. She wasn't buying it. She knew he was aware that she wasn't buying it, but she let him play. After all, role-playing tended to be the more fun part of their games.

He and AJ shook on some unheard deal and Luke stood from the table, buttoning his jacket like a perfect gentleman.

"If you will all excuse me, I'm gonna have steal the missus away for the rest of the evening. You may not recall, but today's our anniversary."

Tracy sat up, eyes wide in anything but innocence. She hadn't necessarily forgotten, but other matters had taken precedence. They'd agreed to put off celebrating until things were back to normal; she was fairly certain they had anyway.

Her husband noted her stunned demeanor and clapped his hands jovially. "Now, sugar plum, tell me you didn't forget the anniversary of our very special day," he wiggled his eyebrows.

She tamped down on her surprise. "Of course not, but I was more focused on this little gathering we're having. I assumed we were going to celebrate _later_." Not that she wasn't for it. She was always up for a celebration, just not now.

"You assumed wrong." He ignored her indignant muttering. "And on that note. Before we go, I'd like to propose a toast." He lifted his glass. "To this family. To us, and our children, and their children." He lifted his champagne higher to Brook Lynn and Melanie, who he had come to love.

On his cue, AJ rose and lifted his glass, a smile of pride and triumph lighting his many-times darkened face.

"To our roots and our branches. To the love," he gestured to Alan and Monica, Edward and Lila, Luke and Tracy, "that sustains us and will continue to sustain us."

The couples shared intimate smiles; Tracy shook her head at Luke's romantic streak, mockingly berating it with her smile. She blinked away the drops swelling under her eyelids; as did the prideful others seated with her.

"To this house and the souls that keep coming back to it." He paused, taking in the full serendipitous view of his clan. It was right. "To the Quartermaines!" he finished.

"To the Quartermaines!" they chorused and clinked their crystal flutes together, various nectars sloshing on the formerly pristine table setting and inciting tipsy and meaningful laughter as they finally came to drink.

"Happy anniversary, wife," Luke whispered as he kneeled at Tracy's side.

"Thank you," was all she managed before she kissed him into dazed delirium. This house was no longer a tomb, but a home.

"Come to bed," he coaxed as he led her from the candlelit dinner of her family. Upstairs, she would find that he had prepared their bedroom to make this the evening their wedding night should have been. She was enthusiastic and heart-felt in her reward for such forethought and romance from her dearly beloved.

The rest remained late into the early hours recounting the space and time that had separated and shattered them. Old feuds were laid to rest as their holders had been and even older connections were reborn in the mournful seconds that remained of the dying day.

Tracy had already forgiven as much as she could be asked to and had every intention of meeting the coming dawn with a smile. She was free of decades filled with yawning half-emptiness and the sense that part of her was missing. Laying in her dearly devoted lover's arms, she was whole and content.

The destruction had been done, but so had the rebuilding. Once again, this family was tethered by more meaningful threads than the diluted and questionable binding of blood. They were bound by love and it would keep them together, now, and in the next phase, where they would be tossed into the ether for one more round of life. This time, without the benefit of all they had learned.

The name might differ, the tears and trials would be new, but the love could never be altered. It would guard them on their journey, following along and shielding them from the bitterest of blows until, at last, all things stopped. And they landed, weak-legged and exhausted at this place with these people, and realized that they needed nothing else.


End file.
